Reactions to Sandusky's conviction from a former colleague

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, right, is escorted by Centre County Sheriff Denny Nau, left, as he is taken into custody at the Centre County Courthouse after being found guilty of multiple charges of child sexual abuse in Bellefonte, Pa., Friday, June 22, 2012. Sandusky was convicted of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years on Friday, accusations that had sent shock waves through the college campus known as Happy Valley and led to the firing of Penn State's beloved Hall of Fame coach, Joe Paterno.

But for one high school football coach, the events of the past few months have still left him dumbfounded.

Tony Barchuk has been the head football coach for Kingsway High School for over 30 years, developing young high school athletes into college-bound athletes since 1979. Part of his job was to attend weekly summer sessions at colleges to further the development of young high school athletes.

And for 25 years, he’d been attending Penn State’s summer position camps working with linebackers and running backs in weekly sessions and for his years developing linebackers, he would coach alongside Sandusky himself. Sandusky himself was a linebacker coach from 1970 to 1999, so Barchuk would routinely see and talk to the former coach for a couple weeks a year.

Involved in the camps where anywhere between 700 and 900 high school students would show up for a chance to showcase their skills, Barchuk had seen first hand what the community at Happy Valley had become. He had met Paterno and Sandusky and could remember how supportive and friendly Sandusky seemed along with the rest of the coaches. Back in 2001, one of his former star players, Jason Robinson, even decided to play for Penn State as a defensive lineman until 2004.

Barchuk had seen Sandusky, Paterno and the rest of the coaching staff like the rest of the world had until November of last year: The perfect football family.

“I knew that guy for all these years. They (Sandusky and the other coaches) used to come out on the field and do a comedy routine. They were the funniest guys in the world. Now, all of a sudden to see this. Every one of those coaches there, their jaws just hit the ground,” said Barchuk about other coaches learning about Sandusky’s original indictment.

“When I first heard about it, I was like “wow,” said Barchuk. “People aren’t going to be lying about stuff like that. Whatever defense he could come up with, people aren’t going to make up stories like that.”

Now that Barchuk knows the news, that Sandusky is most likely going to spend the rest of his life behind bars after being convicted on 45 of 48 counts, he still pulls for Penn State’s image, still full of pride about the work that he and other coaches had done.

“What else can you do but move on?” said Barchuk. “All those guys are such great guys. The last thing on their mind would be that something like that would be going on.”

“There’s a word: Trust. And all those coaches all trusted each other,” said Barchuk.

And as Penn State works to clear up their image, having hired three new members to the school’s board of trustees as the investigation against school administration continues, Barchuk is quick to point out that the university has been adamant about changing its ways.

According to Barchuk, the summer sessions have new procedures in place where everyone now needs to undergo a background check before participating in the camps and have new preliminary sessions for coaches detailing policies and acceptable behavior.

“It’s a whole new ball game up there now,” said Barchuk. “Penn State is just taking care of what they needed to take care of.”

While the longtime high school football coach hasn’t had to deal with something the size of this, he also has the demeanor of a coach that has to given his team a speech after a bad loss, trying to shrug off the disappointment that comes with it.

“It just shows you, you really can’t just pout. You have to be heads up and you have to understand that things like this go on in the world,” said Barchuk.

“He was just in a situation where he was really like a fox in a chicken coup. Who could really expect that anyone could do something like that?” said Barchuk.

But even as he praises the school for taking the steps it needs to take to start the healing process, the Swedesboro native recognizes that for something of this magnitude to go on as long as it did is not something he would expect from such an established institution.

“They’ll always be marked with that, with what took place. Obviously, there’s got to be something wrong somewhere. It just blows my mind,” said Barchuk.

“You sit there in awe. All those years that I’ve known him and spoke with him. I used to work with the linebackers when he was there. To see something like this go and something like this happen, it’s really terrible,” said Barchuk.

“Penn State is obviously more than just a football team and the bottom line is that it’s a tragedy,” said Barchuk.

And as the coach prepares for the next year, talking about how at the case is one of the first things they talk about at other summer sessions like the ones he attends at Boston College, he knows that this is going to be something that sticks with him.